


Do Come In, Doctor Watson

by riotcow



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Angst, Big Brother Mycroft, First Time, John and Sherlock are in love and in denial, Light sexual coercion, M/M, More angst, Mycroft is a Bit Not Good, Mycroft's Meddling
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-28
Updated: 2015-03-28
Packaged: 2018-03-20 00:27:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,998
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3629844
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/riotcow/pseuds/riotcow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John believes Sherlock is dead, and he's devastated. Mycroft attempts to pick up the pieces, in a distinctly, manipulatively Mycroftian fashion. Lots of angst, and a blow job.</p><p>Added a second installment, post-Reichanbach, Mary-inclusive. This is definitely the only Johnlock I've written that's S3 compliant.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Mycroft correctly anticipated the delicacy and difficulty of the task before him.

A wrong step could have been disastrous in a number of difficult-to-predict ways, but Mycroft did not believe that he was stepping wrongly. He believed that he was stepping carefully, wisely, and in a fashion that was quite correct for both of the interested parties. He didn’t particularly stop to consider whether it was what he himself wanted; that was inconsequential, as it would be good for both John and Sherlock, assuming that Sherlock survived his little holiday abroad.

And if Sherlock didn’t survive, no (further) harm would have been done. John would never know the difference.

Mycroft had Anthea fetch him from the surgery and bring him to 221B. It set the proper tone, he felt. John wasn’t properly scared of Mycroft -- never had been, really -- but he was well aware that Mycroft was a dangerous man. This sort of rendezvous would give him a mild shot of adrenaline, more than a visit over morning coffee would. Wake John up a bit. Rouse him from his grief.

He knew from his PA when John was dropped at the front door, and he heard for himself John’s heavy-footed, reluctant gait on the stair. John paused twice, torn, considering turning around and leaving rather than re-entering _that flat_. Mycroft knew that John had gone back to 221B the night after Sherlock’s suicide, and had not spent a second night there since then. His last trip to finish retrieving his things had been about a month after Sherlock’s death, and since then the flat had sat empty, full of all of Sherlock’s things and many of John’s, the rent paid by Mycroft. With generous extra, because Mrs. Hudson had taken good care of Mycroft’s infuriating little brother.

Eventually the door opened, slowly, John’s sturdy form silhouetted by the lamp on the stair behind him. Mycroft had left the lights in the flat quite low, but he noted John’s twitch when John noticed that Mycroft was sitting in Sherlock’s chair. Sprawled in it, actually, utterly unlike himself… Sherlock’s _posture_ , even.

John narrowed his eyes, Mycroft could observe even in the dimness. He was not amused by what he was probably perceiving as theatrical dramatics. There would be a day, not too far away, when John would come to be grateful for them.

“For god’s sake, what are you playing at, Mycroft?” John asked hollowly.

“Close the door, Dr. Watson, and come in, and take your seat. And pour yourself a drink.” He didn’t bother mimicking Sherlock’s voice or speech patterns, though he could. But that just would have been silly. Every push he was giving to Sherlock’s toy soldier was carefully calculated.

John didn’t budge. “Why would I want to do that?” Unspoken: _You know me well enough to know I’m not interested in games. Do tell me you’re not about to try to threaten me to get me to play one._

But Mycroft was prepared to use another, unexpected strategy at this juncture. “John, it’s time that you and I had a long talk about your relationship with my brother, and your difficulties moving on with your life. Difficult as it may be to believe, I am actually coming to you as a friend. Please do come in.”

John was too cool under stress to betray his surprise on his face, but Mycroft could read it in the lines of his shoulders, especially his wounded side. John stood for a moment, contemplating Mycroft’s answer, and then with a sigh he stepped into the flat and closed the door behind him. Even now, after all these years, he executed a military turn when he wasn’t paying attention to moving in a relaxed fashion. That was just John Watson.

He gave a long, slow look around, and Mycroft took the time to study the ordinary-seeming man who had finally cracked the heart of the great Sherlock Holmes. John unbuttoned his jacket and dropped it over the arm of the couch with absent motions, probably an old habit resurfacing. John’s poker face was imperfect given the waves of emotions that he was undoubtedly struggling to manage, and at this point the best description for his expression probably would have been ‘haunted.’

Mycroft inwardly scoffed in irritation at his little brother and his chosen companion. An autistic virgin genius and his straight-as-an-arrow army doctor, fallen madly in love and neither of them with any bloody idea what to do about it.

And then Sherlock went and killed himself off.

And John Watson had fallen apart.

And here Mycroft was, as usual, cleaning up his little brother’s messes.

John finished his agonized circuit, and came to settle for a moment by his chair, where he looked at the bottle of cognac that was waiting on the side table -- new, provided by Mycroft, but John’s usual from back in the day.

John poured a couple of fingers into the tumbler waiting by the bottle and then downed it standing there on his feet, like a shot. It was disrespectful to the liquor, but if the good doctor was actually going to agree to have this conversation, he was going to need it, so Mycroft merely raised an eyebrow.

This time when John turned there was nothing military in his bearing. He moved… ponderously. As if his limbs weighed a million kilos each. He turned, and he sat down in his old chair, across from Mycroft lounging in Sherlock’s. He poured himself a second drink.

“Did you really _have_ to include all the extra touches?” he asked bitterly, gesturing around them at the flat and Mycroft himself. “If this is going to be about how I need to move on, you’re not exactly helping.”

“Well. That’s only the take home point, John. We do have a few items that we need to work through before we can get to that one.” Mycroft was also drinking… honestly, his body needed the loosening up, and he had enough spare intellect to keep his wits about him though quite a few rounds.

“Do we have an _agenda_ , Mycroft?” John asked curtly.

Mycroft savored the bourbon in his own glass. It was, of course, not his preferred drink, but Sherlock’s... from Sherlock's own sideboard, actually.

“Yes, John, I’m sorry to say that we do. Because I'm aware that my carefully prepared speech isn't going to be very effective until someone finally forces you to admit, to yourself and out loud, the real reason that you’re never going to get over Sherlock’s death.”

It was obvious that John didn’t care at all for the direction that Mycroft was going. He set his glass down with an angry clink. “Fine, Mycroft. _Fine_. If you’ve gone to these lengths why don’t you go ahead and spit it out? Otherwise you’re just going to keep sending Anthea around to fetch me for another round of pissing each other off twice a year for the rest of both of our lives. So what is it you want to say?”

 _Gotchya, Dr. Watson_ , Mycroft thought smugly. The man wasn’t caving because he knew Mycroft wouldn’t let it go otherwise… that had never persuaded him on any matter ever before.

He _wanted_ to be confronted. Even if he couldn’t admit it yet. Mycroft had been certain.

Mycroft was prepared to oblige him. He took a breath.

“You were in love with my brother, Dr. Watson, and you let a label get in the way of your brief window of opportunity.” He kept his voice even, careful not to sound the least bit gloating. “Now he’s gone forever, and no one will ever understand why it was that you were able to fall in love, not with a man, but with this _one particular man_. Because no one in this world but you or I ever knew more than a smattering about who Sherlock Holmes really was. And so there is no one, _no one_ with whom you could talk about this, even if you were willing to try, no one who could possibly understand. Not your therapist; not your sister. Not a girlfriend. No one else can understand what Sherlock was _like_ , can they, John?”

John was simply annoyed as Mycroft began to speak, but three sentences in John started to look pale and alarmed. By the end he had gone rather stony, but that was not a problem. Mycroft had expected that.

John stayed that way for a long moment, digesting Mycroft’s words slowly. In all honesty, Mycroft thought of John Watson as a formidable kind of man in his own way, and he’d certainly come to deeply appreciate what an excellent foil John’s steadiness had provided for Sherlock’s mercurial nature. But Mycroft would be willing to bet a month’s domestic budget that John was going to cave easily tonight, with almost no fight.

To this part, anyway.

“I don’t have to have been _in_ love with him for all the rest of that to be true, you know. About there not being any point to talking to anyone, because no one can possibly hope to get it. That’s true. That’s the part that gets me.”

Okay. A partial revelation, but oblique, still withholding. John was responding, though. Mycroft’s tactics were good.

Mycroft sipped his bourbon, peering at John over the rim. “But the dazzling enormity of what we’ve lost isn’t the only thing keeping you in isolation, Dr. Watson. The very great weight of your regret is smothering you to death, and you need to admit it out loud.”

John swallowed. Mycroft noticed.

“I --”

“Don’t lie, John. You know I can tell when you’re lying.” Mycroft interrupted him to spare him the effort.

Another long moment stretched out. Mycroft did nothing to relieve the tension.

“I --”

“You’re still planning to lie.” Mycroft was rarely this obvious about it, but John needed a lot of provocation tonight.

Mycroft waited to see if a third attempt was forthcoming. Finally John sighed deeply, and Mycroft knew that the soldier was running up his blood-stained, tear-soaked white undershirt in the universal gesture for peace.

“I regret it, yes,” John finally said slowly. “I regret that I never hauled him up out of that fucking chair that you’re sitting in right now and took him upstairs to my bedroom and showed him his way around his own fucking body. The great detective Sherlock Holmes, an honest-to-god _virgin_. Fuck, I should have done it, Mycroft. And I didn’t.” John was silent for a long, tense moment, then he exhaled again. “I should have, but I didn’t. There, is that what you wanted to hear?”

“Yes.” Mycroft drew the word out. “That’s what I wanted to hear. But you do realize that Sherlock was in reality rather frightened of sex, don’t you, John? How do you believe that Sherlock would have reacted if you _had_ approached him?”

Now John’s breathing was angry, but he wasn’t resisting answering anymore. He poured himself a third drink. “I have no bloody clue what he would have done. It makes me fucking crazy, Mycroft. Fine. You want to hear that, too? It’s driving me absolutely out of my mind, wondering what he would have done.”

Now that John was talking, Mycroft could see his rage and frustration and regret written all over his face, his skin, his bones and organs. John may not have been _inclined_ to open up to Mycroft, but Mycroft had hit all the right notes and voila, John Watson, open as a book. And now that he was, he was feeling the great release of finally verbalizing to another human being all the poisonous ruminations that had been destroying his peace of mind. Mycroft didn’t need to prod any more. Only to sit back and listen.

John looked into the bottom of his empty glass. “I honestly didn’t want you to deduce all this, but since you already have there’s no point in denying it, is there? Yes, god, I was in love with Sherlock. I should have told him, whether he wanted to do anything about it or not. He should have known that someone had fallen in love with him.”

Mycroft found himself touched, by his standards anyway, by John’s words. John had understood what effect it might have had on Sherlock, to know that someone had fallen in love with him. Sherlock had been stunned enough merely to discover that John had come to be his _friend_.

Well, if Mycroft had his way -- and he would -- John would someday get to tell Sherlock his secret. And Mycroft was willing to take dramatic measures to ensure that Sherlock was going to respond appropriately, when the time came.

Mycroft finished his second drink and looked John in the eye.

“Have one more drink, John. Please, for me.”

John was slumped deeply in his chair, his right hand massaging his left shoulder absently. It was a habit he never, ever indulged in public, where people would note his weakness. It was an at-home habit. A with-Sherlock habit. Certainly not a with-Mycroft habit. John paused to pour himself his final drink and then toss it back.

“What would he have done, Mycroft?” John was feeling the alcohol now, clearly. He certainly wouldn’t have asked _that_ if he were still sober.

Of course John knew that Mycroft could answer the question more accurately than anyone else in the world. John had known Sherlock better, in the end, than Mycroft did, but Mycroft had been there for Sherlock’s entire life. John had always had such a robust libido that he had never really understood what was going on with Sherlock sexually.

“Honestly, John, I think he would have been frightened, and I think he would have done something to sabotage your efforts or otherwise push you away. I’m not entirely sure where it would have gone from there; with no previous data points it’s hard to know. But Sherlock certainly was in love with you. It’s impossible to know what he would have done, given the chance, with someone he felt that way about. There are no reference points for it. Irene Adler was a passing infatuation compared to the intensity of his feelings with you.”

John had stopped breathing entirely when Mycroft pronounced that his brother had been in love with him. Just stopped altogether, not holding his breath exactly, merely frozen. After a moment, Mycroft wondered idly if he should prompt him to breathe.

But no, John resumed, but slowly, incrementally, not with an explosive inhalation. His fingers were white on the arms of the chair. “I should have done it,” he repeated hollowly.

“Then do it,” Mycroft suggested.

John looked up from his haunted musings, into Mycroft’s face. “What?”

Mycroft firmed his jaw. “Tonight, right now, is the one chance for you and I to take a final moment to be close to him. I’m the only other Holmes male, John, and neither Sherlock nor I have had any progeny… I’m the last man, save our father, to walk this earth with his blood in my veins. Let me be Sherlock for you, for just a moment, John. Show me what you wanted to do to him, and I’ll get to be close to him by being him for you, _you_ , the man that taught him to love.”

John looked at him incredulously. “Are you entirely fucking serious, Mycroft? Are you off your bloody _nut?”_

Mycroft didn’t flinch. “I am entirely serious, Dr. Watson, and not the least bit mad. Close your eyes a moment. Smell the air in this flat. Listen to its ambient noises, its creaks and groans, the fire in the hearth that you shared with him. His violin lays within reach of my hand. Can’t you feel how close he is, with the two of us who loved him most in this room?”

He knew it was true. He saw John’s hand shake, and that was when Mycroft knew that he was really getting to John. John’s hands _never_ shook anymore.

“It’s okay, John. You’ve already moved past the label problem in your own head. You can’t have Sherlock back, but for a moment you can have the closest thing possible. You need to do something to exorcise these demons, John. It’s just a ritual, it’ll help you on your way. ”

For a long moment, John Watson didn’t move. Barely breathed. Simply stared, expressionless. Empty. Silent.

It was fine, Mycroft knew. He’d handled this correctly. The old John Watson -- the one who had not yet been broken by his brother’s carelessness -- would have laughed at Mycroft for this. Gone home to Sherlock, to their bizarre but passionate relationship. This John Watson, though, ached with a loneliness that no woman could ease. No _number_ of women could ease. Not that he hadn’t been trying.

Finally John moved, but slowly. Put down his tumbler. Ran a hand through his hair. Looked Mycroft over, from head to toe, thoughtfully, Sherlock’s body language, Sherlock’s blood in his veins, deliberately smelling of Sherlock. Then, carefully, John made his way from his chair onto his knees on the floor.

Mycroft watched John approach, deliberately channeling his brother’s thought processes in every way he knew. He intended to be the man that Sherlock could have been and should have been for John, if not for his silly little phobia. Sherlock might yet be able to _become_ this man for John, if Mycroft could only give them both the correct series of incentives. As he was doing, now.

John’s approach made clear what he had on his mind, and Mycroft approved of his reasoning. John couldn’t have known this, but Mycroft knew that phenotypically, the singular respect in which he and his brother most resembled each other was directly below their belts. Mycroft unbuttoned his trousers and pushed them down, along with his pants, far enough to present John with his obliging erection.

John’s technique was far from expert, but it was strangely reverent, and Mycroft reflected on what a great disservice his brother had been doing to John Watson with his disregard of his devastation. It was more of an intellectual reflection than anything else… Mycroft would never have advised Sherlock to place sentiment over the practical concern of dismantling Moriarty’s network.

Mycroft carded his fingers through John’s hair, the way that Sherlock had done to Mycroft himself when he was very small and they were sleeping in the same room, once he was very, very exhausted. Never before that point, not even when Sherlock was a toddler, but once he was very tired the young Sherlock had been quite cuddly. It had been gone by the time he was five, Mycroft recalled.

Oh, Sherlock.

Mycroft _did_ actually feel close to his wayward brother as John’s mouth moved over him slowly, exploratively. John’s hands were on Mycroft’s knees, and John’s tremor was still present and accounted for. That meant that John really was letting himself go with Mycroft’s little scenario. He was letting himself mourn. Mycroft was not surprised to feel a single tear strike his thigh as John worked himself up to taking Mycroft’s cock all the way into his mouth.

He found his rhythm with gentle coaching from Mycroft, who made sure to keep his touch as Sherlock’s would have been. Someday John would hopefully have reason to know just how similar this was to what he truly craved. For tonight, he was lost in the fantasy of what-might-have-been, and Mycroft Holmes, of all men, rocked him through his grief.

Mycroft let him have some time, then started to relax his body, letting John’s ministrations carry him through his own sexual response cycle. That was about the best that Mycroft could enjoy sex, though his body did seem to require it and so he kept an eye on it like all his other bodily functions. He wasn’t entirely unaffected by the mood, by John’s anguish. He could not pretend to know how to orgasm as Sherlock, so he orgasmed as he always did, with one low, tightly controlled moan.

John did surprise him then, by lowering his head and swallowing Mycroft’s semen, without any apparent disgust or reluctance, his eyes closed to stay inside of whatever internal experience he was having. Mycroft did not disturb him, just let his hand rest on John’s head the way that he was sure Sherlock’s would have.

That was it. Nothing more was needed.

John stood slowly, and looked around the flat again. His eyes were damp, but there was no wetness on his cheeks. He turned on the spot until he located his jacket, then with a wry smile he picked it up from the arm of the sofa and shrugged himself into it.

He opened the door, paused with his hand on the wood. Turned somewhat, so Mycroft could see him in profile. He looked… weary. “Thank you, Mycroft,” John said softly.

Then he left.

Mycroft left shortly thereafter, after only one or two additional drinks.


	2. ...and Mary enters the picture...

I checked in on the good doctor tonight. He hasn’t been doing well, so I was forced to intervene. My apologies for any fingerprints left. - MH

What sort of intervention? - SH

He clearly felt much better afterwards. You’re welcome. - MH

You’re baiting me, I refuse to rise to it. Tell me or not. - SH

What did you do to John? - SH

You know damn well I can’t work if I’m worried about John. You’re interfering in the good of the British nation, you traitor. -SH

John is fine, Sherlock. Calm yourself. - MH

You still haven’t told me what you’ve done to him. Why? - SH

Cell 14b has been confirmed moving from Ontario to Yemen 14.3 1215 hr - MH

Fine. - SH 

* * *

The very first night that Sherlock Holmes met Mary Morstan, in the small hours of the mornings, he lay awake and thought about her. And about John Watson. Because as far as Sherlock could tell, he had botched his reunion with John in every way possible.

What did it mean, that it had honestly not once occurred to him that John might have actually moved on? Initially, he'd been utterly unconcerned about the fact that John was on a date when Sherlock barged back into his life. After all, John had always dated, and it had never really meant much other than the fact that John wanted sex and Sherlock didn't. Sherlock had never previously considered this to be a problem, not with the rate at which John had always gone through bedpartners.

And then Sherlock left John alone for a moment, and somehow Mary Morstan happened.

Sherlock lay on the couch in the flat in a thinking pose, staring at the ceiling. He couldn't shake the suspicion that this Mary situation had something to do with Mycroft's meddling while Sherlock was away. After all, John had never tried to propose to any of his girlfriends before.

_John never thought you were dead before, you moron._

Sherlock needed to know what Mycroft had done. But Mycroft was absolutely, positively not telling, and John was apparently so furious about the small matter of Sherlock faking his death that Sherlock was obliged to wait on his fiancee to talk him around. And hadn't that been a surprise? Sherlock had assumed until that minute that his plan should be to shuffle Mary out of the picture and John back to 221B as quickly as possible, and then she had thrown one heck of a monkey wrench into things with those four little words: I'll talk him `round.

He shouldn't have tried the trick in the restaurant. He should have stuck to Plan A, which was to lure John to the flat and ambush him there, maybe pin him against the closest available wall, and make him 1.) confess in what way Mycroft had left his stink on John and 2.) come to an immediate understanding that he, John Watson, belonged to one very-much-still-alive Sherlock Holmes. But Sherlock had let his impatience get the better of him once again. Damn it all.

It was his lack of experience in this realm that kept doing him in. Sherlock had never experienced either lust or love before meeting his army doctor, and then for those first few years he had been too freaked out by the idea of a physical relationship, too reassured by John's inability to keep a girlfriend for more than a couple of months, to really confront the issue. Then things with Moriarty had come to a head, Sherlock had been forced into exile, and he'd assumed that the moment of reunion would be a good one to clarify his relationship with John.

And then Mycroft had messed it all up, somehow. "Helped" John move on, and god only knew how he had accomplished that, and now this. Mary Morstan. And damn it all, Sherlock rather liked her.

* * *

The very first night that Mary Morstan met Sherlock Holmes, in the small hours of the morning, with John laying awake beside her in their bed, she made the decision.

It might have seemed like a fast leap. After all, John was still in shock that the man was even alive.

But John had spoken extensively about Sherlock in the six months that he’d been courting Mary. He told her that it was uncharacteristic of him to open up, but that was part of what had attracted him so powerfully to Mary. He’d always been the typical soldier in that respect, struggling to open up to Ella, his therapist, over years, struggling to share his feelings with his girlfriends. But John had been through a lot since the war, and it had changed him. His years with Sherlock, and then his profound mourning. John was done with holding the people that he loved at arm’s lengths.

It was a painful irony, Mary decided, that losing great love had made him finally open to love. John had clearly fallen stupidly, insanely, immediately into love with the infamous Sherlock Holmes, had squandered their years together in utter, conflicted denial about it due to his technical heterosexuality, and then finally lost Sherlock in the most catastrophic, life-shattering fashion that Mary could imagine. It had all wrought quite a change in the army doctor.

John was done wasting love. And so when he met Mary Morstan -- and she was breathtakingly beautiful, and cuttingly smart, and sarcastic and kind and so incredibly hot in bed, and he was finally, finally tiring of the extended major depressive episode that had been sucking the meaning from his life since Sherlock’s suicide -- well, he threw himself into courting Mary with abandon.

John himself never referred to Sherlock in those terms, that he had been in love with the lunatic. But though he refused to name it directly, he didn’t particularly try to hide it from Mary either, referring it to it obliquely with a certain ruefulness about lost possibilities. Over time he even came to endure Mary's affectionate teasing over it with a silent half-smile instead of grumbling denials.

John had been in love, he had clearly been out of his mind in love. In fact, Mary was pretty sure that Sherlock had fitted himself into the slot in John’s heart that was labeled 'love of his life,' such that it was no longer an available position for Mary to apply to fill. It was okay; Mary was not a child, and she’d had a life before John too. What John and Mary found together, what they were working on building together, it was enough. It was much more than enough. It was solid, it was good, and they had fun. Mary was happy, and she liked hearing about John’s history with Sherlock, she loved that he had shared parts of that chapter of his life with her and no one else.

And then Sherlock turned out to be alive. Interrupted John’s attempted marriage proposal with the big reveal, and no one should think that the symbolism of that was lost on Mary Morstan.

Mary knew that John processed his feelings slowly, in general. He was going to be in shock for quite a while, and then there was going to be a good deal more anger for him to work through. Hurt, betrayal.

But Mary had met Sherlock now, had seen the way that the great detective looked back at his almost-as-famous blogger, Dr. John Watson. And in that moment, Mary’s great nagging curiosity about the entire matter had been resolved.

Sherlock was equally in love with John. A moron about it, perhaps, but equally in love.

Mary didn’t know how it was going to work -- what John would do, now, Sherlock returned to him and John having had his denial about his feelings shattered by his years of grief. What Sherlock would do. She didn’t really have any idea what to expect.

But she was pretty sure that Sherlock’s resurrection was also going to mean a return of John’s desire for him… a mere two hours in their combined presence had confirmed that for her. And she was pretty sure that if she ever, even for a moment, allowed herself come into competition with Sherlock for John’s heart, that she was going to lose. Sherlock had been there long before her, and the hold he had come to have on John in their years together was stunning.

Mary Morstan was a practical girl. She was not interested in going down that path. And so at the end of that evening, when Mary shared a single moment alone with Sherlock while John hailed a cab, and Sherlock lamented that his apology had not immediately earned him John’s forgiveness for his extraordinary betrayal… Mary said some fateful words to Sherlock.

She said: “I’ll talk him `round.” And Sherlock looked at her, obviously at least a little surprised, he really looked at her for the first time… she had heard the stories, of course, not just from John but from some of his old friends too, but she had no idea how it would feel to be pinned beneath that famously incisive gaze.

He said: “Really?”

Mary smiled at him. “Yeah.” She knew she would succeed, and she knew that Sherlock could read it on her.

And she knew, she understood immediately and instinctively, that she would have to continue succeeding. Every step of the way, she would need them both to know that she was always pushing them together, never coming between them. Sharing John with Sherlock, happily, generously, with delight in getting to see their extraordinary friendship from a closer vantage point than anyone ever had during its first era.

* * *

The very first night that Sherlock Holmes met Mary Morstan, John Watson lay awake beside his also-awake newly-minted fiancee, and he reeled.

Sherlock was alive.

Alive, alive, alive.

John Watson was not a complicated man, not really. He was drawn to complicated people, but he himself was not one, and that was part of his gift, it was what he offered his lovers in return for their fire. He wasn’t big on symbolism or anything, he just knew what he wanted.

Well. Most of the time.

Alive.

His heart sang one note, and damn him if that note didn’t sound like Sherlock laying his best bow across the strings of his beloved violin. Sherlock was alive. Right now. Back at 221B Baker Street, presumably, possibly this very instant, laying in his own bed, repopulating the fridge with human body parts.

In the eighteen months during which John had fantasized constantly, during every moment of every day, that Sherlock was still alive, in every one of those moments, only one thing had mattered after John found out that Sherlock was still alive (and presumably couldn’t make it back to John because yadda yadda fantasy-of-the-week): was Sherlock in love with John?

And then, _then_ , Sherlock had found a way to be alive and yet destroy that one possibility as well -- he turned back up in the middle of John’s proposal to Mary, of all the bloody moments, and John didn’t for one second think that the symbolism of that was lost on Mary Morstan.

Mary was a good woman. John actually loved her, damn it. And Sherlock was back from the dead.

Also: Mycroft had known.

Mycroft had known that Sherlock was actually alive, the night that he lured John to his old flat with the world-famous address. John supposed that Mycroft had only been trying to help John exorcise enough demons that there would still be a man awaiting when Sherlock finally did make it home -- John had been pretty far down the well of self-pity, isolation, brooding and even some dangerous nights with a bottle of bourbon and his Sig. Mycroft had meant to pull John back from the edge, but he’d underestimated the soldier’s ultimate resiliency… John Watson was, if nothing else, a survivor.

Mycroft hadn’t meant for John to truly move on. Not the way that he had. Not on, to someone other than Sherlock.

It was going to be awkward, if John ever saw Mycroft again.

* * *

And then Magnussen happened. Mary had been forced to shoot Sherlock, to put a bullet in his chest cavity. She had reviewed the sequence of decisions over and over in her mind, and didn’t see any way around what she’d done. She had shot him, and then there had been the confrontation in Leinster Gardens. And then that awful conversation at the flat, at 221B Baker Street, the very flat where Sherlock Holmes and Dr. John Watson had led their famous life of adventure together.

After that conversation Mary left 221B and went home and John Watson stayed there, stayed in the flat where he had lived with Sherlock, fallen in love with Sherlock, cavorted through a life of adventure and danger with Sherlock, had denied his desire and feelings for Sherlock for years. Where he had spent his last days with Sherlock. That flat that he would dream about until the day that he died.

He stayed in that flat, with Sherlock Holmes.

And Mary wondered in sad, lost desperation if, in spite of all her care, all her acceptance, she would lose him anyway.

She was tormented by doubt, during the months that John kept her waiting while he slowly worked through his initial feelings and reactions. Knowing that the boys were running again, like the good old days, just the two of them against the world as Sherlock had referred to in delight the night he came back from the dead. Sherlock Holmes and John Watson were together again, both bodies alive and pumping blood and replicating cells and possessing beating hearts and throbbing cocks, and every day Mary was haunted by the regret that she knew John had secretly felt that he’d never acted on his feelings for Sherlock when he’d had the chance.

And now, now he had the chance. Hot on the heels of discovering Mary’s betrayal.

Mary wasn’t sure that even the baby would be enough to hold them back now.

She ate right, and exercised, and went to work, and took a prenatal vitamin every morning, and she went to doctor’s visits on her own, and she waited.

She fretted, and fumed, and pined, and raged, and went to the range and practiced, and endured difficult conversations with concerned and curious friends trying to understand their unexpected separation, and she waited.

* * *

In the time between Sherlock's return from the dead and John's discovery of Mary's betrayal at Leinster Gardens, John made clear to Sherlock that he didn't want to discuss his feelings about Sherlock's faked suicide any more than he had the first night that Sherlock returned, when John had expressed some of his feelings with his fist. He made good on his promise, and he married her, with Sherlock by his side. It was only because the two of them -- his wife and his soul mate -- somehow surprisingly held each other in such obvious warmth and regard that John could stand up there with his heart intact. He married her, and he continued to love Sherlock as best he could.

And then, she shot Sherlock. Her lies came to light at Leinster Gardens. They had it out.

And now John watched his wife's retreating back from the window of 221B. She was pregnant, and she had shot Sherlock, and lied to John, and everything, everything about their relationship had been based on her lies. He hated that he still loved her.

And now here John was, alone in this flat with Sherlock. It wasn't that they hadn't been alone in the months since Sherlock's return. Since John had come around, they'd worked dozen of cases together. John hung around the flat often enough that some semblance of their former domesticity together had even re-emerged, John sometimes in his old chair enjoying a slow brandy while Sherlock spent quality time with his violin. The two men sharing a newspaper over Sherlock's breakfast, which happened quite a bit later in the morning than John's breakfast at home with Mary. Little things.

But John knew. He knew that there was something that Sherlock wanted to say, something that John wasn't letting him say. He didn't know if Sherlock knew about that night with Mycroft, didn't know if Sherlock really understood what John had gone through in the two years that Sherlock abandoned him.

He wasn't sure if he was ready to find out.

When John finally turned away from the window, Sherlock was watching him. Yes, they'd been alone many times, but never like this. In this place. This exposed.

Sherlock opened his mouth, then shut it. John held up a hand. "Don't," he said firmly.

Sherlock looked taken aback. "Don't what?"

John sighed and scrubbed his hand over his face. "Whatever it is, Sherlock. Yes, obviously, I know that we need to talk. But give me five bloody minutes, okay, to try to come to terms with the fact that my entire marriage is a sham."

And John stalked away, back to his old upstairs bedroom, where he didn't even need to fetch a duffle bag from home because it still came fully equipped to meet his needs.

* * *

Sherlock managed to give him a week. It was clearly torture, and the tension between the two men was agonizing, but John just couldn't move that fast. Ella had the patience of a saint, the way that she put up with his stalling in therapy. Now it was late, and John was slightly drunk, and Sherlock had been playing agitated music for about two hours when he put down his bow and turned around.

"You have to tell me what did Mycroft did to you, John," he blurted uncomfortably.

John felt a spike of unreasonable anger and he half-slammed his novel down on the table beside his chair. Then he took a deep breath, and then another, all the while pinned under Sherlock's unnerving pale gaze.

John decided to go ahead and answer the damn question, and so gave Sherlock a tight smile.

"He brought me here, for a little heart-to-heart. He confronted me, about having been in love with you. About having missed my chance to find out what you would have done about that, if I'd told you." John's words weren't exactly slurred, but their edges were rounded, softened, perhaps. But the words themselves, they were terrifyingly direct.

Sherlock dropped the bow across the table, and lay his violin in its case. He was pale, paler than usual, which was saying something. He straightened up and turned back toward John, gazing down at him in a calculating fashion. "And?"

John refused to look guilty. "It doesn't matter, Sherlock. You're both manipulative bastards, and neither of you gives a damn about its impact on my life, that much is clear. What do you want me to say about it?"

Sherlock fell into his chair across from John and stared at him. John stared back. He guessed this was it. The accounting.

"Were you in love with me, John?" Sherlock sounded completely clinical in his interest.

John couldn't have looked away if he'd wanted to. "Of course I was, you idiot."

"Past tense?" Sherlock arched a brow.

John rolled his eyes. "You asked in the past tense. Of course I am, then. What am I supposed to do about it, Sherlock? I'm a married man... you may recall standing up with me on the most important day of my life."

Suddenly Sherlock's interest didn't seem so purely clinical. His pale eyes, usually so cool, were suddenly blazing with intensity. They tightened, and Sherlock's brow creased, and his lips parted just slightly.

"It's obvious, John. Mycroft was trying to provoke a possessive response on my part. To force me through my reluctance to accept my feelings for you." Sherlock was still as stone.

John took a deep breath. "He said that you --"

"-- returned your feelings, yes. Obviously, John. I destroyed my life to protect you."

So that was how Sherlock thought about the choice he'd made that day, on top of St. Bart's. John didn't know if he'd ever be able to come around to seeing it that way, not fully. But maybe, now that he wasn't quite as angry at Sherlock -- or, more honestly, now that the place for most-pissed-off-at had been usurped by John's lying wife -- maybe now John could understand what Sherlock meant.

Basically, they'd each sacrificed everything to protect one another. But it had all been at Sherlock's behest -- John had had no say in the matter. As usual, with matters with Sherlock. As was happening now, that John was a married man sitting here finally making these heartbreaking, useless confessions.

"I'll only embarrass us both if I attempt some sort of seduction, John. Would you please simply take me to bed? If you show me how we get started, I'm sure that I'll get the hang of it quickly." Sherlock was utterly sincere.

John shook his head ruefully, his eyes flashing, huffing bitter amusement on the exhale. "Jesus, Sherlock, you can't just say stuff like that..." and then he trailed off, the smile fading from his face. "Well. Why can't you? Where did that get us last time?"

Sherlock's gaze was level. "No where."

John nodded and took a deep breath. "Okay. Fine.” With the fingers of his right hand, he quickly worked his wedding ring off of his left hand and dropped it with a soft but distinct clink on the table by his glass. “But Sherlock. I can't promise you anything. I'm... conflicted, about Mary. I don't know what I'm going to decide. I made a promise to her that I take very seriously."

"You're about to break that promise, John." Sherlock's tone was unflinching.

And sure enough, John did not flinch, though he swallowed. "There are lines I will cross for you, and lines I will not. It might be different if she weren’t pregnant, but she is. And I'm not in a state to make any new promises right now, am I?"

Sherlock nodded. "Okay." He didn't move.

Neither did John, yet. "Sherlock. I need to know... are you still a virgin?"

Sherlock licked his lips, slowly. John didn't think that he was trying to be seductive, but the effect was certainly remarkable. John was much more than half-hard.

"Yes. That's why I'm willing to accept these terms. I'd rather you, once, than not at all."

It was an awful admission, and it hung in the air between them. They both knew that, whatever John decided, he would not wind up sleeping alone unless he wanted to. The same was not true for Sherlock. Or for Mary, come to think of it.

Not that John knew what Sherlock would even have wanted from him, if he could have had more than this. Rings on fingers? Somehow John thought not, for either of them. But John had thought often about the nights that they should have just fallen into bed together as the rode the high of a case solved back into the flat.

That was what was finally going to happen, tonight. And then, possibly, for a while. But in the end, John was going to have to make a decision.

"Come upstairs with me, Sherlock."

The younger man shook his head of dark curls. "No. My room. I want to remember us there, if you go."

John felt a wretched feeling in his gut even as his cock was already swollen with the promise of what lay ahead. Sherlock Holmes, alive, and about to lose his virginity to John Watson. The circumstances, as it turned out, sucked. But all John's cock seemed to care about was the simple fact that it was actually going to happen.

“Do you have what we need?”

“Yes.” Sherlock blushed lightly.

John led Sherlock to his room, and there he turned in the darkness and let Sherlock come to him. John dragged him unceremoniously onto the bed, where he entangled their limbs and their mouths and their nervous systems in an absolute cacophony of primal need. It was exactly as they’d both expected it to be, over the years… hot and hard, with teeth and tongues and calloused fingers, some from the bow and some from the gun.

But it was also slower, and softer, and gentler than either of them had expected, at least after the first round, at least for stretches. John found himself falling into a reverent mood as he took his time preparing Sherlock, in a cool and moonlit room with the sounds of London filtering into the relative stillness. Just John’s fingers at work, and John’s mouth near Sherlock’s ear, against the column of his sweat-damp throat.

“Why have you never done this before, Sherlock?” John asked quietly. There was no visible clock in the room, and John was effectively spooning Sherlock, their legs intertwined, as John’s fingers opened Sherlock gently. He didn’t know if it’d been an hour or three. Just a long, long stretch of kissing and clawing and touching and wanting until they’d settled into this...

Sherlock’s head twitched to the side, toward John, even as his long, lean body writhed slowly beneath John’s ministrations. “I honestly have never wanted to, before.” Sherlock’s voice was a low rumble in the darkness.

It was a hell of an admission, and John took it in solemnly. He knew damn well that Sherlock was being manipulative, sharing something like that. But he was also being honest, and John had asked.

He didn’t know how much later it was that he finally let Sherlock roll John over and demonstrate what he’d just learned, fingering John open with plenty of time and lube before sliding, grunting, into his body, and then the two had shown each other just how versatile they each could be. Certainly some part of John was aware that it wasn’t long before dawn, that he and Sherlock had been on each other all night and the room stank of alcohol and men’s sweat and semen. The alcohol was all John. Sherlock would hate it.

Sherlock was inside him. Alive, his pulse beating in his cock, and right now he was brutally hard and he was inside of John in a way that no one had ever been inside of John and he clearly wanted deeper, deeper…

John was in a hazy red place made up of friction and pleasure and pain and carnal animal noises and scents when he half-noted the name of Sherlock’s brother among the sex talk.

“Never touch him again, Mycroft,” Sherlock was muttering to himself.

John shook his head, focusing on Sherlock. He raised an arm behind his head and grasped about for a handful of the taller man’s curls, then used the leverage to pull Sherlock forward for a rough, half-twisted kiss.

“Stop it, Sherlock. Mycroft isn’t here. I am.”

And that seemed to be the end of that.

**Author's Note:**

> This was supposed to be the first chapter in a longer tale, but it lost steam. Upon re-reading, I'm actually quite fond of the writing here -- I have to say, I think this particular piece reflects my training and experience as a psychologist as much as any. I love, love, love writing Mycroft Holmes.


End file.
